


Northanger Abbey of Marin

by fresne



Category: Northanger Abbey - Jane Austen
Genre: Cat2, F/M, Literature, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide 2013, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one who saw Catherine Moreland as a little girl could have supposed she was to be a heroine.</p><p>Fortunately, she'd discovered the wonder that was teen romances. Fortunately, she'd read Twilight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Northanger Abbey of Marin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [foolishle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolishle/gifts).



No one who saw Catherine Moreland as a little girl could have supposed she was to be a heroine. Her Mother didn't die in childbirth or tragically crossing the street. Her parents didn't even divorce and were not only sufficiently in love to have three children before Catherine, but six after.

Even with ten children, her family was not absurdly poor. Her father didn't force Catherine or her siblings to work in the mines, which there aren't particularly many of in Los Angeles. All the Moreland children did work as teenagers, many of them at one of their father's three Laundromats, but nothing particularly gruesome in the way of hours. In any case, they'd converted their fireplace to gas years ago and that white brick structure wouldn't have dared have cinders in it.

They also weren't absurdly rich, living as they did in in a ranch style house in Long Beach with several additions as the additional children came along.

Catherine's dreams were not filled with portentous nightmares. In fact, she slept very well and so deeply that it took three alarm clocks in the morning to wake her up.

She was not pretty, and not in the way that she didn't think she was pretty, but really secretly was extremely beautiful with every person or being who came into her orbit being fatally attracted to staring at her for hours and forlornly following her around in the hopes that she'd drop some crumb of affection.

She really wasn't very pretty, beyond the prettiness that any healthy teenager with two eyes, a nose and a mouth had. Those eyes were merely a reasonable enough brown and did not require glasses that could be removed later to expose a secret beauty. Her hair was a greasy sort of dishwater something mouse-brown until her Mother changed her shampoo and then it was merely mouse brown. At fifteen, Catherine discovered hair dye and her hair was a whole range of colors including quite memorably when it was supposed to be red and was instead a sort of purple.

She was neither sweetly clumsy, nor preternaturally graceful. She could walk a straight line, but her Mother let her quit gymnastics when she was merely five, so she could at best do a rough summersault.

As a little girl, not knowing that she was to be heroine, she did not spend her hours in the special training of blankly gazing off into space while soulfully gardening or painting surprisingly accurate drawings without a single lesson. She did not manage to be plucky and clever like so many heroines. Nor did she manage to be a shy introverted bookworm with secret inner strength.

When she became bored with learning to play – in consecutive order - the piano, the guitar, and the triangle, her Mother- in sequence - let her quit. Later Catherine expressed a slight interest in attending the Chemathon in high school, she was reminded of this lack of stay-to-itiveness by her Mother and told she shouldn’t go. Catherine cheerfully gave up on the idea as silly.

She didn't even enjoy reading until she was fifteen. It was then that she discovered teen romances, lipstick and nylons – mostly so she could put runs in them. Chief among the teen romances, and her Bible of all that was good, was Twilight.

After she read those books, she experimented with hair dye until she had the exact right shade of mahogany. Now to her despair there was nothing that could make her slightly sallow skin pale. In fact, living in Los Angeles meant that adding insult to injury, she also had a lot of freckles.

Now her parents were somewhat concerned about the nature of the books she was reading as they seemed to involve supernatural content, altogether unlike the Bible that they felt she should be taking as her Bible, but were comforted that at least they correctly emphasized the necessity of waiting until marriage before having sex.

Now, Catherine tried to insist that her family refer to her as Cat, which she felt was closer to a name like Bella, but sadly this resulted in a period of being only addressed by meowing by her younger siblings and she was forced to give up.

It was her dream to go to college in the vaguely imagined Pacific Northwest, but her parents told her that they were not paying for an out of state college. In the end, she had sufficiently good grades to make it into UC Santa Cruz, which based on the brochures had a lot of trees and fog. When she received her acceptance, she slept the sleep of the innocently satisfied.

Her Father was happy that UCSC was no longer quite such a hippy place and they actually gave grades these days. Her Mother, who had married a man – to be clear Catherine's father – who had gone to UCLA, was happy that Catherine was going to a UC, and anyway, her far more clever older brother James had made it into UC Berkeley, so he could look in on her from time to time.

Now, Catherine was a little worried about having a roommate. Especially one she had never met. But she was in the process of sticking her Team Edward poster to the wall over her bed with this sort of gumlike sticky stuff, when her roommate arrived, stopped dead in the door and squealed. "OMG!" This paragon of a roommate dropped her bags to the ground and frantically pulled a poster out of a poster tube. It was the very same Team Edward poster.

Catherine gasped at this circumstance and was so moved that she hugged this stranger before even learning her name, which as it happened was actually Isabella Thorpe. Although, she said with a demure smile, "I prefer to be called Bella."

Then and there, the two vowed to be BFF due to this complete alignment in their interests, and as Bella said, "I have no idea how to love people by halves. Really why would I bother with being less than a BFF with someone?"

Now there was much that Catherine had to learn from Bella. Because when Catherine mentioned, "Snow White and the Huntsman," Bella's expression became very cold. "You mean that movie that doesn't exist because it broke my Edward's heart!"

Catherine's own heart thumped in her chest. "Yes, I did mean that movie that doesn't exist, which since it doesn't exist I'll stop talking about it, because it's impossible to talk about things that don't exist, unless I guess you're getting a Theology degree, which I don't think you get here. My brother James is thinking of getting one from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley."

Bella, who it would be useful to mention actually was quite pretty. She had naturally mahogany hair with a widows peak, and naturally darker eyebrows and naturally pale skin and naturally large brown eyes and naturally plump lips in a face that she consciously tilted down so as to appear heart shaped and not fox-like at all, said, "Yes, that movie that does not exist."

Catherine was only too willing to be guided by this far more excellent devotee to Twilight, who had thought to wear a Team Edward shirt. Bella had four times the number of posters for the movies, which she willingly shared with Catherine.

Since it was their first day, the new BFFs went to their orientation by their hall RA, Ellen Allen.

They were gathered into the hall's common room, looking in what they hoped were beautifully blank expressions.

Ellen got up and said, "Hey, guys, I'm your Residential Advisor. I'm a senior here at UCSC. As you can see my shirt is a genuine X-E design, my jeans are Kim Kardashian's latest, and my boots are Guchi. So… while I am posting specific hours when you can drop by my room on the door, just knock if there's anything you need, particularly fashion advice or condoms," she held up an enormous box, "I have a supply, which I can get free from the Student Union. So, be safe and feel free to ask." She picked up banana and waggled it. "And if you don't know how to put one on, I also have bananas for you to practice on. If there are any accidents, the Health Center, which is here on your map," she pointed to a map, "can prescribe Plan B. Any questions?"

There were some questions and she went about the room answering them.

However, Bella wanted Catherine to meet her brother, John, who was a sophomore living in the other dorm, so they left early.

John lived in a triple room and was a beefy sort of young man with greasy dun hair, which made Catherine wish she could offer him some of her shampoo.

John was undeclared, but because he was naturally brilliant, he going to make a film. "I'm going to call it 'Space Monkeys from the Andromeda System', like Sea Monkeys, but from space."

Catherine smiled because she had absolutely no idea what John was talking about. But as she did so, John looked at her with an intense focus and said, "You shall be in my movie."

Bella nodded serenely. "I'm in all of John's movies," and drifted slightly off to practice being innocently flirtatious with his roommate.

"They are all masterpieces, of course!" said John with an emphatic swipe of a paw like hand upon his meaty thigh. "Even if my sister insists on wearing things that make her look like a toad."

Catherine ventured a question near to her heart. "Have you seen Twilight, or maybe read the books?"

John shook his head. "Oh, I never read, or for that matter go to movies these days. They're all crap. There hasn't been a decent movie since Caddyshack. That's why I make movies in my spare time. Show them how easy it is. Just point a camera and then post it online. How hard is that?"

"I think you might like Twilight," said Catherine, looking at Bella for affirmation, but Bella was too busy with her practice flirting to hear her.

"Well, if I were to read a novel, it might by Ms. Meyers." John opined to the ceiling, currently covered in small glow in the dark stars.

"Um, Twilight was written by Stephanie Meyers," said Catherine hesitant about correcting a young man of this certitude.

"Oh, I must have been thinking about that other woman," John waved a hand to indicate all women writers and the far wall currently decorated with several Giger posters featuring naked alienish women doing things with biomechanical devices, "the British one on welfare. You know, the one about the boy that lives in closet that everyone was crazy to read. Imagine that, an entire story about a boy in a closet. Harry Potter. That was the name."

Catherine to her vague shame had to admit, "I've never read it."

"You didn't miss anything, it's all about a boy living in a closet. Boring stuff. I can't imagine how she got five books out of that, but there it is. Just don't have time for it." John nodded at the room in a satisfied way. "No, you'll definitely be in my movie."

"Oh," said Catherine, who didn't really like John's manner, but was flattered to be told she was definitely going to be in his next movie. He showed her his previous works. She wasn't quite sure what made them masterpieces, but she was assured by John this was simply because she'd never been trained to understand genius. Later, Bella whispered that John that she was the most friendly girl in the world, which was flattering to hear.

Now if Catherine had been vainer or older, she might not have changed her opinion from not liking him at all, to liking him somewhat, but where youth and diffidence are combined, it's hard to overcome actual impressions of someone.

This was the start of Catherine's college experience.

That very day, she spent a considerable amount of time in a tree near the great meadow swinging a string tied around a bowling pin with a candle stuck in a hole in the fat end, which was meant to represent a spaceship with an engine, while John filmed. She learned that the bowling pin spaceship was ironic. A great many things were ironic, which Catherine was happy to learn. 

Now, Catherine did get to meet a few other people, as John was very busy and Bella needed to run some errands that weekend. She met Eleanor Tilney, who had a single room across from them and wanted to get a degree in the History of Consciousness.

She and Bella joined the campus Twilight reading club, which met weekly in good weather under the Porter Wave – more generally known as the Flying IUD - statue out on the meadow, and in College 8's Dining room – as they had pizza – when the weather was poor. Jenny the brown, who was a sophomore with brown hair, told them that Porter B dorm was haunted by a student, who had committed suicide. Jenny the blond, who was a junior with blond hair, told them that there was a dead body buried under a bump in the dirt at Stephenson College. Gina, whose hair was currently green, told them that there were hidden staircases at Cowell College and secret tunnels under the science buildings. Joel actually knew someone who had been to the hall of faces in Hell Hole cave. They also occasionally discussed books.

Bella declared that having a haunted dorm was far superior to hidden staircases and subsequently she saw the ghost three times. Sadly, Catherine was always asleep when it appeared.

Now in the course of all this socializing, she met one person that she liked very much.

One day, she met a young man, who while not actually attractive was very close. He was knocking on Eleanor's door, and introduced himself as her brother, Henry. By Catherine's great fortune, Eleanor wasn't in her room.

Catherine knew from Eleanor that Henry had graduated from UCSC last year, and as such was actually employed doing something for a Startup. At her age, this four year gap in their ages seemed filled with meaningful knowledge.

With no answer to his knocks, Henry said, "While I wait, would you care to throw back and forth the little ball that is conversation. Here, I'll begin, so, how long have you been at Santa Cruz?" When she answered that she'd been there a week, he expressed astonishment.

Catherine was confused. "Why are you so amazed? I started class a week ago. I'm a freshman."

Henry shrugged, "Well, I think it's important to express some emotion when hearing answers to questions and amazement is the easiest. Here you try it. Ask me a question."

She asked him if he'd been to Porter before, and when he answered in the affirmative, she replied, "Really!" and then wasn't sure if she should laugh, because it had been very easy.

Henry sighed then, "I am not going to feature well in your journal am I? I know exactly what you're going to say. 'Got up, put on my Bella hearts Edward shirt', appeared to much advantage as it's a baby-doll cut and not a men's t-shirt; but was strangely harassed by a half-witted man."

She nibbled on her lower lip, not because this was an actual habit, but because Bella – to be clear the Bella from Twilight not the Bella that she roomed with – nibbled upon her lower lip, and she thought that must make this habit attractive. "But what if I don't keep a journal?"

"Oh, please, I'm not so ignorant that I don't think you keep an online journal. How else are your friends to see your pictures and your posts of your most intimate thoughts and dreams? No, you definitely have a journal. Now what I hope you write, is that you met an agreeable young man, who is an extraordinary genius, and that you'd like to meet again."

She blushed and quite forgot to nibble her lower lip. "I might write that. If I had a journal. But I don't."

She didn't quite know how to make up for this extraordinary lack in herself, but Henry clutched his chest and declaimed, "Foiled by reality." He shook his head and grinned in such an amiable way that she smiled back for her many siblings had made her an expert at smiling at her own folly. Just then Eleanor returned and said, "Henry, you haven't been bothering Catherine with your silliness, have you." She turned to Catherine. "You mustn't mind Henry. He's mostly harmless."

Henry bowed slightly at Catherine. "Lovely meeting you. So long and thanks for all the fish. Please feature me highly in the journal that you don't keep, but perhaps is written only in the library of dreams." He winked at her and followed Eleanor into her room.

Catherine went back to her room hardly knowing how her feet had taken her there, she was in such a haze. Then she realized that she was still clutching her toothbrush and she went back to the bathroom after all.

As to her classes, she did have them.

She slept deeply and often missed her Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning class, even though Multiculturalism in a Multicultural Society was at Porter College and a requirement for graduation. For having just arrived, she must be planning on her leaving.

Also, she had trouble focusing on the books for that class. "The Bluest Eye" was very depressing and not in a sexy romantic way, but in a way that actually made her think and feel bad about the world.

Bella, who also had to take the class and skipped it on moral grounds, for their second book declared that, "100 Years of Solitude should have been called 1000 Years of Boredom!" There was nothing in it as thrilling as Edward and Bella's love. "Nothing!" said Bella who flung herself on her bed in a near swoon. After that, Catherine felt too intimidated to read it in front of her.

Catherine did manage to go to her afternoon classes. She had an Introduction to Astronomy class, which satisfied three separate graduation requirements and a class on the Hebrew Bible as Literature, which was a little contradictory to what she'd always been taught, but such was the plasticity of her mind that she didn't let it bother her. She simply decided that it was all true.

She thought the campus was wonderful. She and Bella agreed on that. It was simply covered in towering redwood trees that dwarfed over the buildings. In fact, it was possible to walk for a good twenty minutes between classes without seeing a single building. Although, all the bicyclists and students hurrying about tried to ruin the atmosphere, but they could not. They carefully examined the bump at Stephenson, but could not discern the body. They explored Cowell College and could not find the secret passages.

Catherine got a definite shiver when she walked alone at night along the paths through the forest. She could feel the werewolves watching her from the dark rustling woods. Although, perhaps she shouldn't have screamed at the mule deer by moonlight.

She knew the werewolves were there and according to Bella there were vampires living at the north end of campus. Catherine was fairly certain that this one girl in the dining hall was a vampire, because she always carried an umbrella and was very pale.

Bella and John were both working there as part of the work study program and were quite impressed that Catherine didn't have to.

She felt a little too shy to explain that her grandparents, who delighted in talking about how they were saving all their money for their children to inherit, had set aside some money for each of their many grandchildren for college. Her parents had told Catherine that she could wait until her sophomore year before getting a job. Freshman year was confusing enough, and would be doubly so for someone as silly as herself.

She was leaving the Porter Dining Hall when she ran into Eleanor and to her delight, Henry. Eleanor invited Catherine to go for a walk with them on the fire roads. "We were thinking of going out to the totem pole in the woods above Merrell."

This was very agreeable to Catherine, who very much liked the Porter Totem Pole and would like to see another.

As she walked, Catherine looked up at the misty morning clinging to the tops of the redwood trees and sighed as they dripped on her, "This always makes me think of the Olympic Peninsula."

Henry looked at Catherine, "You've been to the Olympic Peninsula?"

"Oh, no," Catherine sighed again this time in disgruntled longing for all the times she'd asked to go and been informed they were going to Knotts Berry Farm, which wasn't even Disneyland. "I've just read about it so many times in the Twilight books. I don't suppose you read novels. They're probably too silly for you."

Henry said, with his hand on his heart, "The person who doesn't like reading must be a moron. I've read all of Stephanie Meyer's work, particularly the Twilight books, which made my hair stand on end."

Looking at Henry's very springy curls, Catherine said, "It must not have taken much. Your hair looks practically stuck straight out now."

Eleanor elbowed Henry in a companionable way. "She's got you there."

He hung his head. "It's a good thing I work in tech where I don't have to look particularly presentable."

"Oh, no you look perfectly average." Catherine hastened to say.

Henry clutched his heart laughing even more. "She damns me with faint praise." He grinned, which she returned hardly knowing why.

Eleanor rolled her eyes. "Don't mind him, my brother is a moron and always has been."

This led to further protestations from Catherine, which forced Henry to stop walking altogether as he was clutching a tree to stay upright. Finally Henry said, "You are unintelligibly funny."

To which Catherine replied, "Oh, Me? Yes, I can't speak well enough to be unintelligible. I think you need a philosophy degree for that and I'm undeclared," which set Henry off in fresh waves of laughter. Catherine joined in, because his laughter really was infectious, if a bit resembling a donkey braying and not at all like soulful brooding.

When they had collected themselves, Eleanor, who had spent the time sitting on a stump reading, said, "We're a great family of readers. And you should never think that a novel is something silly. Hours of someone's life went into making what is almost their child. A novel takes effusions of wit and humor, and a knowledge of human nature. One person trying to convey how they see the world to the best of their ability."

"What are you reading?" asked Catherine, who was always willing to learn about new novels.

"Oh, err…" Eleanor glanced at her book, which had a lurid figure of a demon and a pale woman on the cover, and therefore looked very interesting. "This 'The Monk' by Lewis, um… if you're reading Twilight, it may be a little too sexy for you."

"Oh," Catherine lowered her voice and then said in a perfectly carrying whispered developed over years of whispering over her siblings, "You mean like Fifty Shades of Grey?"

Henry chuckled and Eleanor said, "Yeah, no. Fifty Shades wishes it were this twisted. Anyway, if I wanted to read BDSM Fantasy porn, I'll read Jaqueline Carey's Kushiel books. They're gorgeously written and I feel like…"

"You're having a religious experience," said Henry, waggling his eyebrows, which resulted in him being hit with the book.

Catherine, who was no stranger to this sort of behaviour, waited for them to be finished. She greatly wished that she'd brought a piece of paper with her to write down the names of these books. Henry, actually ripped out a piece of paper from a little notebook and wrote a few of them down for her. "You were looking a little desperate."

She nodded having left her phone in her room. They resumed their walk. They admired the totem pole that had been carved and then placed by students in the woods. On their way back, Henry took them through the remnants of Elfland above Colleges Nine and Ten. 

For those not so fortunate as to have been to Elfland, in its hey day it was a dell-like area upon the UC campus next to a fern laced stream where students had woven nests of branches in the circles that redwood trees are fond of forming. Within these nests, students left small trinkets and tin boxes to leave notes to the elves. While most are gone in this less civilized time, a few remained and it was to one of these that that they made their visit. 

Henry, prepared for the message tins, provided paper and pen to both Eleanor and Catherine so they could leave notes to the elves.

After Catherine rather wistfully wished that she could see some of the other dens, Henry said, "You should check out the Morad Roel from Special Collections at McHenry Library. It has a map of where all dens were in 1989 before Colleges Nine and Ten were built. It's a good guide for finding some of the ones that are still here."

Catherine solemnly wrote this name down on her paper along with the other book names that Henry had written down for her, and was very well satisfied with the results of her walk.

Now, as it happened, two weeks later, Catherine's brother James came for a visit, and no sooner had Bella set eyes on him, but she pulled Catherine aside and said, "I am in love with your brother." Catherine put down the socks that she was folding and listened to this very seriously. "What must I do to win his heart?"

"Um, be yourself," said Catherine, who had heard this was good advice. Although, her parents had often told her to be a more quiet version of herself, but Bella did not have that problem.

"Yes," said Bella. "Yes." She obtained James' number from Catherine and within a very short time was exchanging impassioned texts with him. James visited the very next weekend, even though he'd come the week before. Catherine was a little surprised, when by Sunday Bella and James told her that they were engaged. "Now we'll be sisters as well as BFF."

"Um," said Catherine as she was embraced.

Bella later told her that, of course, they were engaged, because she simply could not wait to enjoy the bliss of James' embrace. Catherine had trouble imagining this, because James' was her brother. But she was willing to accept it.

It did make her sad when her parents insisted that James finish his degree before he and Bella could marry, which sent Bella into a storm of crying, which somehow didn't make her look any less beautiful.

When Catherine cried, she looked a wreck with red eyes and snotty nose, but she supposed this was why Bella was better than she was.

This went on through much of October. Catherine did manage to write a paper on the Balinese Shadow Puppets for her Multiculturalism class based on a Wikipedia entry, because Bella said everyone did it. She also read all three of the first Kushiel series, which were Very interesting. She tried to talk about them with Bella, but she wasn't interested in books that she hadn't recommended. She was far too busy pining for James, who really ought to come visit every weekend, and she was very vexed when he wouldn't.

Catherine, when she didn't have to go to class, or climb a tree so she could float around bowling pin spaceships for John, went for long walks with Eleanor, and quite often Henry, who was there so often on the weekend it was like he lived there rather than San Francisco, and talked about what she'd read, and all the books that were left in the world to read.

She laughed a great deal when she was with Henry. Although, she hardly could have said what she was laughing about.

Although, on more than one occasion, John told Eleanor that Catherine couldn't go for a walk because she'd already agreed to help him with his movie, which was not true, and she always had to run after Eleanor and tell her that it was not true, which Eleanor was nice enough to understand.

The first time this happened Henry said, "If you'd rather help your boyfriend, we would understand, of course."

Catherine was confused. "John's not my boyfriend."

Henry grinned and asked her how she was doing, and soon they were all laughing over something she'd said.

In the second weekend of November, Eleanor and Henry's father, General Tilney along with Eleanor's other brother, Franklin, came for a visit.

They ate in the Dining hall with Catherine, Bella and John.

John insisted on sitting next to Catherine. Unfortunately, James could not visit that weekend, which was unfortunate, because the entire meal was very odd.

John spent the entire time going on about how wealthy Catherine's family was and how they owned a chain of stores in Los Angeles. Now it was true, Catherine's father did own three Laundromats, but it was hardly a chain. John just kept talking about the Morelands as if he were a Moreland, which made no sense.

General Tilney took a great interest in her after that and as they showed the General around the college, he complemented Catherine on the elasticity of her walk. Catherine had never considered the elasticity of her walk before and began bouncing even more elastically after that. He also invited her if she was not going to be going home over Thanksgiving to spend that weekend at his home Northanger Abbey in Marin.

This offer was very dazzling to Catherine, who thought visiting an Abbey would be wonderful indeed. She told him that she had no plans to go home over the long weekend, which wasn't really long enough for the trip.

She was so filled with dreams of visiting an Abbey and bouncing that she almost didn't notice the way that Frederick was flirting with Bella and the way Bella was flirting back.

Catherine pulled Henry aside and asked him what he thought his brother was doing flirting with an engaged woman, but Henry refused to take responsibility for his brother. They almost quarrelled over it, and Catherine left him feeling sour and out of sorts with everything, but still very much wanting to see him again and very much wanting to see an Abbey.

Now that night, she had reason to become very worried, because quiet hour came around and Bella wasn't in their room. It was Sunday, a school night and she really ought to be there. Catherine was very worried. There were dark things in the woods of campus.

She peered out her window at the moonlit meadow below and the dark forest beyond. It seemed full of packs of werewolves and hunter vampires, who would do Bella an injury. She was about to go knock on Ellen Allen's door and ask if they could call campus security, when Bella dragged herself through the door.

She was moving very slowly. Catherine whispered, "Are you okay? Were you attacked? Was it a vampire?"

"Mmmmm, no," said Bella who shed her coat on her desk chair. That was when Catherine saw the mark on Bella's neck. It was ugly and red and there were the faint teeth marks from a bite.

"Oh, my God, it was the vampires." Catherine was certain of it. Bella had been bitten by a vampire. While of course, they would both like to become vampires and live beautifully forever, that would mean she had been bitten by someone other than James.

Bella stretched. "No." She cracked her back and pulled a pine needle out of her tangled hair. "No, I just had sex with Frederick in the hollow of a tree under the moonlight. It was wonderful." She stretched the word or perhaps it just seemed so to Catherine's horrified ears.

"But what about James?" It was a plea on Catherine's part.

"What about him." Bella smiled at Catherine and for once she didn't tilt her head down and she looked very foxlike indeed. "If he didn't care enough to come visit me every weekend, then he must not care about me at all."

"No, but," Catherine struggled for a frame of reference, "He's like Edward in 'New Moon'. He's trying to do what's best for both of you."

"Well, maybe what I wanted was Edward in 'Breaking Dawn'. I wanted someone overcome with passion for me. He was supposed to sweep me off my feet, not, not… I'm eighteen. I could die in a car crash tomorrow, and then where would I be if I waited. And I looked up how much ministers make, and that isn't enough to pay off my student loans let me tell you."

"But, you live on campus. We don't have cars," whispered Catherine in a bewildered manner.

Bella said very loftily, "Frederick has a job and a car." She had her hands on her hips as if she were daring Catherine to do something, but Catherine wasn't sure what it was.

Catherine was still blinking when her phone rang. It was James, who said that Bella had broken it off with him and did she know why and she couldn't very well tell him why, so she went and sat in the cold stairwell and told him that Bella was very young and that maybe it was for the best and there's always a silver lining and there was not a single phrase that she did not use.

They finally hung up not because James was feeling better, but because James' phone ran out of power. Catherine looked at her own phone forlornly.

Catherine ended knocking on Eleanor's door and asking if she could sleep there that night. She slept in a sleeping bag on Eleanor's floor. She didn't want to say why. It was just too horrible, and Frederick was Eleanor's brother and she was sure to take sides, but then Eleanor sighed and said, "I know, Freddie's always been a bit of a douche, and Bella, well, I've been kind of expecting something like this, but I'm sorry that it did."

That sort of made Catherine feel a little bit better, and she fell asleep.

She returned to her room in the morning to find her Edward & Bella poster ripped down the middle and that was when she knew that Bella was a false friend.

She wasn't so stupid that she hadn't known that Bella actually dyed her hair just as much as Catherine did. She also dyed her eyebrows and used a lip plumper on her lips, and used a sort of rice powder to look that pale, which there was nothing wrong with. After all Catherine did some of the same things, but she didn't lie about it.

She went to the Porter office and requested an immediate room transfer. Eleanor helped her move two floors down into a three person room, whose third had transferred to College 8.

She focused on her upcoming trip to Northanger Abbey, which would surely make her feel better with its dark and mysterious spaces.

Now as it happened, she was sitting down to the Turkey dinner in the dining hall, when John put his tray down next to her and said, "I heard you saying that you weren't going home for Thanksgiving. Since you'll be around, you should help me with my latest project."

Eleanor, who was eyeing her turkey dubiously, said, "She's come with us up to Northanger Abbey for Thanksgiving."

John very loftily said, "This was a conversation between myself and my girlfriend."

At which point, Catherine was very confused, because she really thought she would have noticed if she and John were dating. She said, "But we're not dating. I just climb trees for you because you're too, um… busy to climb them for your rocket ships."

Eleanor idly stabbed a fork through a carrot. John turned a color similar to the cranberry sauce, and left.

Catherine tried to focus on happy things like Northanger Abbey. She imagined a great looming building deep in the woods filled with majesty and secrets.

Come Thursday morning, Henry drove up in a very old blue car of possibly German-Japanese-American manufacture. Catherine could not be sure, but it was definitely blue, and Catherine was definitely excited to be going to an Abbey.

They drove up the coast and through the City, and Catherine peered out the window at the Golden Gate bridge. She'd never crossed it before. Henry even pulled over at the lookout so she could look out. It was a wonderfully cloudy day and the wind whipped at her hair, which got in her mouth and in her lipstick.

However, when they pulled off highway, they did not turn out into the lonesome woods, but turned towards the town of Tiburon, which stuck out in the bay. The houses were very nice and large, and they all seemed to have names like "House of Eight Gables" or "Walden Aerie", but none of them were anything more than big houses. She held out hopes for Northanger Abbey until they pulled into a circular driveway. It was just a house. A large ranch style home much like the one she'd grown up in, if considerably better maintained.

She sighed. Henry laughed. "You were expecting something a bit more Abbeyish weren't you?"

She nodded and decided to put the best face on it. "At least the driveway is circular, and you have a fountain." She'd always liked fountains. It made a pretty sound, which reminded her that she had to pee.

After she'd done that, she was given the tour of the house by a smiling General Tilney. Now, try as she might, she could not find a single secret door or passageway. Although she poked a great many walls.

However, her suspicions were finally realized when she saw the kitchen, which although it was fitted with every cooking device known to humankind, was spotless in a way that said that there wasn't a single item of food that had ever been cooked in it ever. She looked curiously in the refrigerator. There was a single bottle of red wine. It was very suspicious.

For dinner there was a small turkey, and a variety of fixings, but there was no indication for how any of these things had been made. They simply appeared. 

Everyone dished out a spoonful of this and that, but no one ate anything. They pushed their food around their plates, while the General said things like, "What kind of degree is History of Consciousness?" and "Henry, the money went out of Startups ten years ago. I have a friend at Bechdel. I'll call him Monday." and "Are you enjoying yourself, dear?"

This last was addressed to Catherine, who had started nibbling at her food in desperation. She had turkey in her mouth, but she put her hand in front of it and said, "Yes. Your house is very nice. It's very, um… Abbeyish."

Henry choked on something, which was odd because he hadn't eaten anything.

She was casting back trying to remember if she actually remembered seeing either Eleanor or Henry ever put food in their mouths, and certainly the General hadn't eaten anything when they'd been at the dining hall and their brother Frederick had bitten Bella on the neck, or given her a hickey, which was the same thing. Although, she'd gone on many walks with Eleanor and Henry, it had always been in the forest, which was never sunny even on bright days. Then there was the mysteriously missing lack of a Mrs. General. It was entirely possible that the General had killed her when he attempted to turn her into a vampire.

She was certain they were all vampires. She'd fallen into a nest of vampires, or been invited. She was delighted. She was so distracted, that she wasn't quite sure how she answered the General's questions, but now both Eleanor and Henry were having trouble breathing. Even though they hadn't had a bite to eat.

She immediately began to plot how to get the lot of them outside in sunshine. She put aside her napkin as soon as she could and said, "We should go for a walk in the sunshine. You said I had an elastic walk and I've been working on giving it extra bounce."

General Tilney stared at her and finally said, "I'm far too busy to go for a walk, child, but you must of course walk about the estate." Now calling the very large yard an estate was a bit much, but there it was.

The General took himself off to his office, which was a great disappointment. However, Catherine was fairly certain that she could reflect sunshine through the mirror if she tried hard enough. That was if the sun would cooperate and come out and shine on the large yard like estate, which to her great joy it finally did in fits and starts.

Henry caught her as she was adjusting her mirror next to the patio furniture. She rather sadly had to decide that he at least was not a vampire, because he didn't sparkle in the slightest. Henry said, "Catherine, my father is not a vampire. He's had digestive problems since 1993 and only drinks protein shakes, which I grant you are a thick disgusting liquid, but not the same as blood at all. He has the dinner brought in and never cooks."

"Oh," said Catherine feeling very embarrassed. She didn't quite know what to do with herself.  
"And your Mother?" asked Catherine in a very small voice. She sat down on a cold iron work patio chair.

"She lives in Santa Barbara. Eleanor and will visit her for Christmas. That's where Frederick is now. We trade off parents." Henry sat across from her.

"Oh." Catherine twisted her hands in her hoodie's pockets. "I'm so sorry."

Henry shrugged. "Would you like to go out for sandwich? We never eat much at Thanksgiving, what with the grilling the General gives us. Nice work by the way. I've never seen him deflected like that."

"What? Oh, I'm sorry," said Catherine, who was certain that she'd done something else wrong.

"Don't be." Henry looked at his shoes. "So, um, sandwiches?"

With those words all previous disappointment were swept away. She hardly tasted her sandwich. She memorized Henry's every word. Now since Henry lived in San Francisco, he wasn't going to stay overnight, but they parted on warm enough terms, and he would be driving them back to Santa Cruz on Sunday.

That night she slept the sleep of the innocently happy having been forgiven all transgressions.

She was rudely woken from these reflections by General Tilney flinging open the door to the guest room and saying a very cold hard voice, "I've discovered that my family cannot stay the weekend. You need to leave now so can get ready to go ourselves."

"But," Catherine started and wilted under his stare. She quickly dressed, while he waited outside the door.

He then escorted her to the front door, which he closed behind her with a resounding bang. It was still dark outside. She'd never seen the day from the side before.

She walked half asleep out the curving driveway and past all the fancy houses, until she came to a small town center with a dock. She was about to start crying, when a very nice old man said, "Honey, what's the matter?" So she told him, and he told her not to worry and that she was in the right place, because this was where the ferry came that went to San Francisco and, "there ain't no place you can't get to from there."

"Okay," said Catherine. She hugged the old man very gently because he looked brittle and she wondered if he were a kindly wandering spirit or something. "Thank you."

She cried the entire way back across the bay and was blinking tears when they finally arrived at the ferry terminal. She cried anew to be so close to Henry, but so far. She wasn't sure what she'd done wrong, but was certain that it must be horrible.

She told her entire story to a woman at the counter at the ferry terminal, who told her that this General Tilney sounded like an asshole and that what she needed to do to get home was take the KT line on Muni to the Caltrans station and take the train down to San Jose. From there, she'd be able to catch the connector bus over to Santa Cruz.

Catherine weepily thanked the woman and got a tissue from her.

She did exactly what the bus terminal lady had said to do.

It wasn't easy. She almost got lost when she got off the Muni car, but she asked directions at a bakery and she made it to the Caltrans station. There the woman at the counter waited for her to count out her change to buy a ticket. Fortunately, she had enough to get to San Jose and then back over the hill to Santa Cruz, what with the change she'd found walking. She even had something to eat from the bakery. A blueberry muffin watered by tears.

With her student bus pass, she was able to get back to campus.

Her triple room was reproachfully empty.

A heroine, returning to her home in triumph, in a sports car with all the dignity of a rock star and with a long train of hangers on in her tour bus, is an event that a writer my lingerly dwell on with clacking keys.

This description has none of that and yet, as Catherine looked at her room, she reflected that that very morning, she'd no idea how to get from Marin to Santa Cruz, and if asked she wouldn't have believed herself capable of making the trip.

She did the only thing she could think to do. She called her Mother. Now, after relaying everything that had happened, she did not get a great deal of comfort from that direction. As all her Mother could ultimately suggest was that "It was a strange business and General Tilney was a strange man," and that, "You were always a little fragile and not very capable; but now that you've had to take care of yourself, I hope you didn't leave anything behind anywhere, because you'll never see it again." Then she advised that Catherine go to bed early and work hard.

Catherine was glad to do the first, but sadly on waking was unable to accomplish the second task. Her every attempt to focus on Shadow Puppets in East Asian theater was shattered by frequent sighs and the occasional leaky eye.

She came to the conclusion that there was not much point and that she should go for a walk, which she did for hours in the deep woods, which perhaps weren't full of vampires and werewolves, but there were Elf dens built by students. She left a long teary note in the Dark Water den in which she concluded that General Tilney was not a vampire, but he was not a very nice man.

It was with some surprise that when she returned to her dorm she saw Henry sitting on the floor outside her room.

She said the only thing she could think of which was, "Hello."

He did not reply, hello, but instead said, "I am so sorry. I managed to pry out of Dad what happened and I am so sorry, then you didn't answer when I knocked last night and I wasn't sure if you'd come back here or gone to your brother's, but I didn't know where else to go to find you."

Catherine rather dazedly nodded at him and because she was both tired and dusty, she let them both into her room. She perched on her bed and he paced around and babbled about things.

It turned out that the reason General Tilney had invited her to Thanksgiving was because he'd heard John say her family was very wealthy, and he was always only too willing to curry favor for the connections that might bring.

However, after she'd told John on Wednesday that they weren't dating, he had looked up General Tilney's number on LinkedIn. John had called the General late Thursday night and told him that Catherine was at UCSC entirely on student loans, and her family was far from rich. In fact, her family had gone bankrupt in the last financial crisis. General Tilney had fumed over this for several hours, resulting in what had happened. Henry said, "I'm so sorry," many times and that he'd told his father what he thought of him, and Eleanor had too, and could Catherine forgive him.

Catherine was only too willing to forgive and forget and they exchanged more kisses than they ever had before, having never kissed until that moment.

Now, contrary to romantic expectation, they did not get engaged immediately after that. They did start to date. They progressed through dating over the year.

In June, Eleanor graduated and Catherine met Henry's Mother, Janice, who was very nice, and so was her husband, Jeremy. They all went out to dinner and had burgers, which Catherine enjoyed.

However, it was with great reluctance that Catherine went home for the summer, because it was no longer her home. She was so miserable over the moping summer that her Mother accused her of picking up an attitude of being too good to work, and thankfully her Father didn't depend on her to clean out the industrial driers or he would be out of luck. 

Catherine resolved to change something in her life.

She didn't have to. When she went back to school, Henry moved to Santa Cruz, because he could work remotely for his startup.

Catherine did not put her Twilight posters up in her new dorm room. She'd moved on to some art prints of this couple kissing by Klimt, and this very romantic painting of the Lady of Shalott. In any case, she wasn't there that much, as she mostly moved in with Henry. She got a job on campus at the Environmental Safety Office as part of the office staff filing paperwork about the inspections of the various science labs, which was very interesting.

This was how in the end, despite being told that she was incapable of sticking to any one thing, Catherine ended up with a degree in chemistry, and someone surprisingly with honors in her major. That is to say they handed her an index card that said, "Catherine Moreland, Honors in Chemistry" twenty minutes before graduation.

She and Henry did eventually get married. If Henry's affection for her originally were somewhat brought on by her appearing to really like him, well, it's a new reason for falling in love. Her family would have preferred it they had not prefaced their marriage by several years of living together first. But that was their problem.

Both Catherine and Henry were both somewhat convinced that it was the General's unjust interference, far from being a problem, that actually helped them find happiness together by showing the strength of how much they cared for each other. 

I leave it to the reader to determine if this work recommends that parents behave badly, or that children should be rewarded for following their own path in life.

**Author's Note:**

> If after reading my fiction here, you would like to read more about me and my writing check out my profile.


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